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Toting bagfuls of snacks and drinks, a small crowd gathers on a swath of patchy grass beside New York City's East River. Seats are staked out with blankets and coolers. Conversation tapers off when a pinkish-red sunset envelops Manhattan's skyscrapers across the river, triggering a click, a whir and the flicker of celluloid on a large screen mounted on a trailer. This evening's offering at the Socrates Sculpture Park in Queens: "Wattstax," a 1972 documentary about an L.A. concert that captured the broiling racial tension of the era. Against a darkening sky, a young Jesse Jackson leaps out from the screen leading chants of "I am somebody!" The orange glows of cigarettes (some tobacco, some not) dot the audience like fireflies. Madhavi Me-non, a 31-year-old restaurant worker, explains the allure: "It's the feeling of the great outdoors," she says, "and experiencing a sense of community."
Watching movies and sitting under the stars have always been two of summertime's greatest pleasures. And now, at venues all over the world, more and more people are enjoying them simultaneously. In New York City, where obscure and commercial offerings can be seen indoors every night, the trend is relatively new. In Europe, outdoor movies-- popular before the dominance of...
